Lessons Learned Along the Way
by A Raven's Call
Summary: The universe seems to have a penchant toward irony…or at least following several TV tropes. They want to hate each other, but it's awfully hard to keep a grudge when you live forever. Slaven. One shot.


**Lessons Learned Along the Way**

**Rating:** T for swearing. I'm so sorry. I have a little bit of a potty mouth… :(

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this. I think people realize this… I guess, the fact that it's on a fanfiction site would kind of tip someone off…

**Notes: **Hey peeps! You know how people say that it's hard for Slaven to happen because they hate each other, he's a psychopath, she's a hero, he's way to old for her, yadayadaya? Well, I thought, why not try to get around that? And boom! This was born!

It's kind of hard to hate someone when you're immortal and he/she's immortal. Everything changes when you live forever. When everyone's disappearing and they're not, suddenly they start to look pretty good… Besides, age becomes a relative thing after 100 years. Maybe…

…It's also a convenient excuse to try to make a nice, stable Slaven fic… Sort of.

Also, Slade's chemicals made him immortal. How? Who knows? But if Justice League Unlimited can give Vandal Savage immortality via meteorite, I think I'm okay…maybe...

He also goes around as Deathstroke. The poor guy's probably bored out of his mind just being Slade the would-be evil overlord. He'd probably need someone to hire him to do things to keep things fresh.

The numbers signify the year that the fic is being narrated at. My headcannon is that the Teen Titans Cartoon universe Season 5 took place when the series ended, which makes it take place during 2006.

It's futurefic… Does that make it AU? IDK.

Sorry. Rambling's over.

Apologies in advance for OOCness, but that's what time does to you.

Anyway, please enjoy!

* * *

Who wants to live forever?

Idiots.

* * *

_2115_

The universe seems to have a penchant toward irony…or at least following several TV tropes. Beast Boy, after all, dies first. Cyborg is next. Then Starfire. Robin hangs on for a few years before he follows his wife's lead.

Her friends lose to old age and sickness and natural wear and tear. They lose but they win—in the end. They die peacefully, happily.

She doesn't.

A hundred years have passed and she hasn't even aged a day.

From the looks of it, her body doesn't plan to.

—

—

If you ignore his missing eye, Slade has lost nothing and everything at the same time. He is whole as a person and yet broken beyond repair. Better than whole, if his eternal youth is anything to go by. Broken completely if he looks at the track record.

He's lost his wife (to his enemies) and his sons (to both his pride and his failures) and his daughter (to the super serum) and his best friend (to old age).

So he deliberately loses himself to the shadows, becomes a demon of the darkness. Does his hits around the world. Does whatever he wants whenever he wants.

Rinse and repeat. Day in, day out.

He has never felt so empty before.

—

—

They both learn loneliness is a bitch.

—

_2132_

In the year 2132, a natural disaster sent half the population into the ocean, the scientific population scrambling for answers, and both of them together in a dinky little bar in Sicily.

"Care for a drink?"

Raven stares at the white haired man beside her in shock. She recognizes that voice anywhere, and he knows those piercing amethyst eyes like the back of his hand.

"Slade."

"Raven."

Neither of them sounds surprised to see the other. It was expected that they'd run into each other, one way or another. Deathstroke the Terminator was still a famous, active mercenary, and Raven, well, he still kept tabs on her. Useful information, you know.

They haven't changed one bit. He's still a villain; she's still a hero. The lines are drawn, but they're blurred. Time is a drunken mistress and tends to get a little fuzzy about the particulars.

"Lonely?" he asks with a polite smile that's resembles a smirk.

She doesn't answer. Slade grins and scoots his barstool closer.

They talk for an hour before he can't help but revert back to his old ways. Force of habit. (And maybe he wants to relive the past. Just a bit.)

"Your friends are more useful dead," Slade points out. "They were just holding back your true potential. You're better off without them."

She slaps him. _Hard_.

Raven storms away without a backward glance. Slade's left alone at the bar, the force of the blow still ringing in his ears and his hand ruefully rubbing his stinging cheek.

He deserved that.

—

He learns to never bring up her friends again.

—

_2146_

The second time they meet is much more amicable. It's awfully hard to keep a grudge when you live forever.

It's New Years. The year's 2146? Or was it 2147? Neither of them really cares. It's just an excuse to pretend to be normal and a half-hearted attempt to keep track of time. (But who needs time when you can't die? Believe them, both of them have tried.)

They're doing their best to blend in with the drunken revelers when their eyes meet from across the bar. She hasn't aged a day, and he thinks that maybe she's kind-of-sort-of beautiful. Raven knows that Slade is still the same one-eyed, annoying (and maybe kind-of-sort-of handsome) man that had pursued her and her friends.

They talk. He's polite this time, and she isn't stupid or spiteful enough to rub salt in his wounds. (And they both think that Fate is taking vindictive pleasure making the once-enemies interact with each other.)

Eventually, he asks her to dance.

For some stupid reason, she says yes.

Slade interlaces his fingers with hers and pulls her close enough to be intimate without being intrusive. His touch is surprisingly gentle, warm. Not at all like that night so many years ago when it burned and burned and burned.

Slade opens his mouth to say something when the spell is broken by shouts of 'Happy New Year!' He watches her flee from the bar and ignores the slight pang in his chest that intensifies once she's gone.

—

They both learn that time is the best medicine. Only problem is that it takes a lot of time.

—

—

Fortunately, they have more than enough of that.

—

_2154_

She starts to hate her reflection by now; it's perfect, too perfect, too youthful and full of life. It reminds her how she will never age, never die, and will only live, live, live alone (if you ignore _him_) until the universe implodes upon itself.

It's quite dark. Perhaps that's why her horror books are selling so well.

_He_ doesn't hate her, though, and the hate she felt for him has mellowed to uncertainty and perhaps something more. Slade is probably the only one who can understand her and the pain of living forever and sorrow of watching everyone you love die. He is the only constant in her life of loneliness and pain.

That's probably why when Raven sees him sitting on a park bench, she doesn't hurry away in the opposite direction. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Slade pats the space beside him invitingly. She finds herself unceremoniously plopping down next to him.

When she leaves, his contact info is in her pocket.

They keep in touch for the next twenty years.

—

She learns that he was just as lonely as she is.

—

_2168_

The year is 2168 and Raven is still sick of life. Slade is too, but when they're together, it seems that life is a little less boring. Whatever they have is the universe's rock. Everything else just pales in comparison. That's transient; this isn't.

They're pigging out on pizza at some restaurant when the television announces that some idiot alien race took out the Justice League. The newscaster blabs about something about them subjugating earth, how everyone's now under their rule, and blah blah blah blah. They look at each other, half-eaten pizza forgotten.

She raises an eyebrow. "Wanna take 'em?"

He shrugs. "Why not?"

—

The would-be alien conquers are defeated the following day.

—

They learn that they make a damn good team.

—

_2173_

He drops by her house whenever he can. He's not a stalker. (Raven did _give _him her address, after all.) Slade's more of a freeloader, even though his assets could more than pay for all of his living expenses for eternity.

The press is alive with speculation about the famous horror novelist's alleged relationship with a mysterious, white-haired man, and the scandal of it is brewing up a flurry of activity for the tabloids.

She doesn't seem to care. Sort of.

Someone really needed to straighten out her priorities.

(But then again, fame and fortune were such fleeting things.)

"Don't you have a home to go to?" Raven asks exasperatedly, rolling her eyes. "I keep thinking you only come by for the free food."

"What can I say?" Slade smirks. "I like your place."

She rolls her eyes before she jabs him in the chest. "I should start charging you rent."

"You wouldn't."

Raven smacks him irritably. "I might. One day."

—

In spite of her complaints, she still doesn't kick him out.

—

He learns that she's very cute when she's angry.

—

_2178_

He is waiting for his target to come by when he spots her typing furiously on her computer in a coffee shop. Slade blows the job off in favor of popping in to say hi.

That day, the target gets away, but he can't really bring himself to care. Slade's far too busy dragging Raven around the catacombs of Paris.

She's supposed to be finishing her novel, but she forgets that when they're racing up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. Slade is doing his best to keep up with her. Chuckling, Raven floats teasingly just out of his reach.

He catches her at the top of the tower. Slade tackles her, a triumphant grin on his face. "I told you I would catch you."

Raven bopped his nose. "Only because I let you."

They end the day just watching the city slowly come to life, the lights drowning the darkness of the night. Everything seems to be glowing, though neither knows if it's from the city or the person standing next to them.

"That was fun."

"Mmm."

"Maybe I should take you on an assassination mission next time…" He winks. Just as he retreats into the darkness, he hears her call: "I also accept flowers!"

He laughs before he resumes his search for his mark.

—

The next day, she finds a bouquet of roses on her doorstep and he finds a disc that contains the location of his target.

—

They learn that both of them are closet romantics.

—

_2179_

It's a few months after Paris, and everything seems to have changed between them. When they touch, the air suddenly feels electric. Slade finds himself making more excuses to see her; Raven keeps finding reasons to make him stay.

Finally, he has to leave. New job. New client. New people to kill. He half-expects her to protest—once a hero, always a hero, after all—but she doesn't. She stopped caring about saving all human life. (What was the point when they were going to die anyway?)

"I'll miss you," he admits, hands in his pockets, biting his lip nervously as if he is sharing a secret.

"Then stay." Flushing, she suddenly becomes extremely interested in the carpet. Slade freezes in the doorway for a moment before he walks over to her. He lifts up her chin, so she looks up at his one electric blue eye.

"You want me to stay?" He has a teasing smile on his face, the kind that makes her want to slap him hard and then kiss him harder. "For how long?"

_Eternity. _But that gets caught in her throat.

"For as long as you can stand me."

"Then a very, very long time," he whispers. Slade presses his forehead to hers. She leans into his touch, her fingers floating up his neck to cup his cheek. "Think you can handle me for that long?"

Raven gives him a lop-sided grin. "Well, we haven't killed each other yet."

Their faces are centimeters away. Thick bands seem to have wrapped around her chest, squeezing her lungs every time she tries to breathe. His breath is constricted in his throat, desperately wanting to get out but can't, as they stare at each other for the longest time.

And suddenly, he kisses her. She kisses him back.

—

There's no pain at all.

—

She learns that living with him was a lot easier than living without him.

—

_2301 _

They take over the world on a whim. It's really just one more thing to check off on their bucket list. Honestly, it isn't that hard, but then again, they've both been alive to see everything and know exactly want would-be world conquerors aren't supposed to do.

Actually, most people are quite happy with their rule. Naturally, there are dissidents, but even then, it's kind of hard to argue with benevolent dictators who actually get things—good things—accomplished.

Raven, the empath, knows how to keep everyone generally happy and in line; Slade's there to be the iron fist in the velvet glove. She keeps him in check while he makes sure she dots her i's and crosses her t's.

After making enough reforms to last humanity a couple decades (if humans won't act like the morons that they're famous for being), they slowly begin to lose interest in the job. They keep it up for thirty years before they get bored and pass on the torch to some youngster who won't screw things up. Maybe. If they're lucky.

"That was fun," she says as they return to their home base located in an alternate dimension. "What should we do now?"

"It's more of a question of what _haven't _we done yet."

"Well, we could build a giant, blue police box that's bigger on the inside. You know, something that can navigate through space and time... I have the magic to make it work; you have the technological knowhow…"

He stares at her, slack-jawed. "What do you think this is? Doctor Who?"

Raven grins. "You could be my companion."

"**No**." Oh dear, lord. For someone who was over a couple hundred years old, she could sometimes be so… _Ugh_. "We don't need a TARDIS! We have _you_ to transport us through space and time. We don't need a machine to do that for us." He trails off when she begins to teleport a telephone box, lots and lots of electronics, and even a kitchen sink into the room.

Slade smacks his hand to his face. "Are you even listening to me?!"

"Nope."

—

Even though he complains about the **thing** constantly, Slade still helps her build a TARDIS look alike.

She kisses him when it works, and he thinks that maybe the thing that he (affectionately) dubbed 'The Abomination' isn't so bad.

—

—

She learns that she liked saying 'we' a lot more than saying 'I.' He learns that whoever came up with the phrase "Happy wife, happy life" was a genius.

—

_Unknown_

He wakes up one day to see some of his hair falling out. Slade doesn't tell her, but the sneaking suspicion in the back of his mind is confirmed when he doesn't regenerate as fast as he used to.

He used to be fine, that is, until he took an arrow to the knee.

It takes him forever to heal that little wound and return to Raven's gallivanting, but by that time the damage has already been done.

He couldn't plead ignorance any longer.

"I thought we had more time." Her fingers float up to touch his cheek. "The serum's finally wearing off."

"Mmm."

"You're aging," Raven murmurs. "Dying."

Slade bites his lip. "I know."

"You don't have to, you know." She rocks back and forth on the balls of her heels. "I could make you live forever, if you wanted to."

When he doesn't respond, she turns away.

"Think about it." She pauses in the doorway. Raven pivots on her heel to fix him with those piercing amethyst eyes. "I don't want to be alone." _Not for forever. Not without you._

He reaches out to give her forearm a reassuring squeeze. "I know."

—

—

They don't speak of it again.

—

—

In the meantime, she takes him traveling with her, and they hop form one point to another, one dimension to the next, until they've seen so many universes that he can barely keep count. Raven shows him the beginning of the universe and the dawn of time, shows him the death of worlds and the birth of others. They dance around supernovas and black holes and death and life and time and space.

It still doesn't change reality, though.

He feels slower, groggier. Slade doesn't complain about it, and she never mentions it. But he knows that she knows his body is slowly giving up on him.

He's just so tired, so weary of watching everything turn to dust, watching time blur around him. They have lived for what? Centuries? Thousands of years? Millions? Billions? He doesn't know anymore nor does he care.

He knows that she won't try to convince him to stay with her, that she won't call him out for being a selfish bastard, that she'll respect his decision no matter what he chooses. (Even though he will break her heart in the process.)

—

—

She watches him slowly break in front of her and become a ghost of his former self. But his eyes are the same—still resolute, determined. He's still the man she fell in love with while being a stranger she doesn't know anymore.

She knows that that he wants to die human, that he just wants to decide the way he goes, that he loves her—but not enough to stay by her side for forever and a day. (It's more like forever minus a day—close but still not enough.)

—

—

He wishes that he was strong enough to live forever.

(In the end, he's only strong enough to break her heart.)

—

She wishes that she could convince him to just add another day.

(In the end, she convinces herself to just be satisfied with less than forever.)

—

—

He never once asks for immortality; she never offers him eternity again.

—

—

He learns that only idiots wanted to live forever.

—

She learns that it was a fruitless endeavor trying to change his mind.

—

_Unknown _

Slade lifts her chin to see those amethyst eyes one last time. "I'll wait for you, you know."

Raven kisses his forehead and runs her fingers through his hair. "You'll wait for me forever," she gently reminds him.

"I'll wait," he whispers. "For forever and a day."

She knows he will.

(Because she'll wait for him too.)

—

—

—

When he dies, her heart dies with him.

—

—

—

—

She learns that, in the end, she was the biggest fool for letting him go.

* * *

Well…that was fun… Thanks for reading!

Yeah…The first interaction was a bit weird… Old enemy you suddenly meet at a bar. Yes, the first thing you'll do is strike up a conversation with him! Because that makes **complete** sense. IDK. Maybe they're just lonely and thinking about better times. I mean, they've been watching everyone they know die for a while; it must be nice just to see a familiarish sort of face.

I had to throw into the TARDIS. That's just something I personally would want to do if I had forever to live.

So what'd you think? Hate it? Love it? Confused? If you have time, type something in the box below and drop a review! Constructive criticism is always welcome! …It's like my version of chocolate cookies.


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